Now that my competing days are behind me and have been for a while, I have really changed up my training routine and am getting great results! As our lives evolve, our fitness routines have to follow. Life is all about balance. At one time in my life, my focus was school and competing. During that time, I was able to spend hours in the gym and hours studying and it worked. As the years have gone on, my life has evolved and priorities have changed. In order to keep things in balance I had to access my goals, what was realistic for me and my family and make the necessary changes in my life and fitness routine to keep things in balance. Now, as a busy mother, wife and business owner, my mantra has become “Getting it done”. I don’t have the same amount of time to spend in the gym nor do I have the same goals as I had when I was competing. Where as my goals may have been to work hard on my upper body to balance my lower body, now I am all about consistently increasing my heart rate and getting in and getting it done! My workouts have shifted from working out in a gym to working out 95% out of my garage! I have gone from about an hour of lifting and hours of steady state cardio to 30-45 minutes a day of combined resistance and cardio in the form of my HIIT circuit training and it is working! I am having so much fun with my workouts these days and want people to see that less is often more!
Circuit training can allow you to stay in amazing shape, physically mentally and emotionally while not taking up countless hours! For those that don’t have tons of time to spend in the gym, I highly suggest you consider circuit training. It is a great, no excuses way to get in efficient workouts in less time. Circuit training allows you to get in resistance training AND cardio all in one session. With limited amount of time, my approach has been “get it done” and “quality over quantity”. There is something to be said about spending less time going through the motions and more time making each rep, set and exercise count, getting in done. With this higher intensity, well rounded approach, every day is changing, which not only keeps you motivated for each workout but keeps your body guessing, which helps it respond! Check out a typical week’s workouts to give you an idea of my current routine and how you may be able to restructure your routine to better fit your busy schedule! No matter what you do focus on “getting it done” and Digging deep each day!!
Gina Aliotti’s Sample Week Workouts:
DAY 1:
1 MILE RUN—WARM UP
20 shoulder presses
20 push-ups
20 kettle bell swings
20 crunches
1 minute plank
rest and repeat 3x
DAY 2:
100 Jump Ropes
10 reps of the following
Shouler Press
Thrusters
Side Laterals
Front Raises
Step Ups
Alternating Lunges
Rest and repeat 3x
Day 3:
20 push ups
run 1/4 mile
50 crunches
run 1/4 mile
50 body weight squats
run 1/4 mile
2 –1 minute plank holds
DAY 4:
YOGA
DAY 5:
Run 5K (3.1 miles)
DAY 6:
Tabata sprints
Sprint 20 seconds, off 10 seconds, repeat 8x for total of 4 minutes
few minutes rest
Circuit:
10 One Arm Rows
10 Side Lateral Raises
10 front raises
30 bicycle crunches
30 body weight squats
Repeat Circuit 3x
DAY 7: ACTIVE RECOVERY– WALK OUTSIDE WITH MY FAMILY 🙂